A Musical Improvisation Company by Derek Bailey, Hugh Davies, Christine Jeffrey, Jamie Muir, and Evan Parker.
Recently, the ECM label made much of its catalog of recordings available to stream from most of the major streaming services. ECM has a ridiculously diverse and rich catalog of music from Mal Waldron’s “Free At Last”, released in 1969, onwards, with everything from folk to jazz to new composed music represented.
One of the earliest artifacts of the UK “Free Improvisation” scene, “A Musical Improvisation Company”, was released on ECM in 1970.
As you can perhaps tell, I am interested in the intersections of Composition and Coincidence. Music and Noise. Nature and Art. Silence and Sound.
While the New York Free Music scene worked out its transcendental Fire Music, the English improvised music scenes, along with groups related to the AACM in the US, developed something more like instantly composed modern classical music. That is, they incorporated more textural and non-tonal elements in their playing, instead of just energy.
This record is a great exploration of those ideas, and, some 47 years later, still thought provoking.
#TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #AMusicalImprovisationCompany #ECMRecordings #DerekBailey #HughDavies #ChristineJeffrey #JamieMuir #Evan Parker
